It’s hard to be back at work after such a wonderful 9 days in Mazama. We had 5 dogs, great snow, lots of good food, great downtime and visits with friends. We were able to ice skate (twice), cross country ski (three times), sled (lots – some with the dogs pulling), snowshoe, help light and watch a huge bonfire on New Years Eve (see other post on this), play games (Cribbage and Monopoly being the favorites) and generally lounge around. Pictures of the week are below – I’ll post a second blog post just for the New Years Eve pictures.
Thanksgiving in Mazama 2009
We just returned from another wonderful trip to Mazama for Thanksgiving. Michelle and Jackson went out on Monday morning while Lindsay and I came out after school/work on Tuesday. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and Jackson spent the whole day making snowmen. We had a bunch of fun in the snow including snow ball fights, snow men, minor sledding and walks in the crunchie white stuff.
We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Stewart and Phil Dietz’s place (because SHE has a dishwasher not named Scott) and were joined by Bernerd and Evaline Waltham and their two young children. We had a wonderful time and had the opportunity to re-interate how lucky we are and how thankful we are to have health, happiness and love.
We got in some projects around the cabin including re-stocking wood, cleaning up the wood storage area, moving the hot water heater inside and patching up some holes. I was able to get in some fishing on the lower Methow and we spent a fun night in Winthrop for the tree lighting and fireworks – which were amazing!
As Michelle said while we were there “I already can’t wait to come back”.
Italy Day 4 – Rome – Vatican Tour Pictures
Prior to leaving, we made reservations for a guided foot tour of the Vatican. This gets us past the looooooong line waiting to get in and gives us an expert to show us the highlights and give us the back stories behind a lot of the works, building, rooms, etc. Shirley wasn’t feeling well in the morning so she missed the tour. The Vatican was an amazing experience in it’s sheer volume of works. If you spent 30 seconds on every piece, it would take 12 straight years to see everything. We didn’t have that kind of time :-). Pictures below:
Italy Day 3 – Rome – Villa Borghese
We spent the day at the Villa Borghese park in Rome. It’s kind of the Central Park of Rome. A former residence that now houses a fantastic museum, pond, bike trails, concert space, etc. We had a very relaxing, wonderful day. Check out the pics below. You can click on the picture to see the full images and slideshow on Picasa:
Italy Day 2 – Bus Tour of Rome
We went on an “Open Tour” bus on day 2 to get an overview of the city. We had another killer nap (still trying to adjust to Italian time) and spent the evening at the Trevi Fountain and the touristy area around there. We had a really mediocre meal at a touristy restaurant near the fountain. Michelle will fill-in details with a full blog post. Lindsay went camera crazy so beware of the 100+ pictures…